The 10 most innovative robotics companies in 2022
Explore the full 2022 list of Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies, 528 organizations whose efforts are reshaping their businesses, industries, and the broader culture. We’ve selected the firms making the biggest impact with their initiatives across 52 categories, including the most innovative AI, design, and AR/VR companies.To get more news about
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1. DRONEDEPLOY
DroneDeploy’s software works with drones from Mavic and other makers, enabling them to set up autonomous inspection and mapping missions of construction sites, energy infrastructure, and agricultural fields. Its 360 Walkthrough functionality combines footage from drones, aerial cameras, and 360-cameras on the ground to provide digital reconstruction of sites from any angle. In 2021, DroneDeploy launched a partnership with agriscience company Corteva, which operates fleets of crop monitoring drones, to develop a tool called Stand Assessment, which uses data from drones to automate crop monitoring and planning. With $50 million raised in 2021, the company’s total fundraising to date is $142 million.
2. NIMBLE
In even the most highly automated fulfillment centers, picking and packing items for specific customer orders usually remains a manual task performed by human workers (who have been in short supply). San Francisco-based Nimble uses AI and “imitation learning” to teach robots delicate pick-and-pack tasks that were previously considered too challenging to automate. The company says its robots have been trained to pick more than 500,000 unique products, including cosmetics, apparel, and consumer electronics, and are deployed with U.S. customers including Best Buy, Victoria’s Secret, and Puma. In March 2021, Nimble raised $50 million Series A financing led by DNS Capital and GSR Ventures.
3. MOBILE INDUSTRIAL ROBOTS
This Danish robot maker beefed up its product line in 2021, adding two new autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) to its manufacturing and warehouse line. The new models can haul and lift loads up to nearly 3,000 pounds, have components rated to hold up to dust and water drops, and are equipped with multiple sensors, 3D cameras, and lidar to avoid collision with human coworkers.
4. SEEGRID
In 2021, Pittsburgh-based Seegrid, which makes self-driving tow tractors and pallet trucks used in warehouses, launched its first autonomous lift truck, the Palion Lift AMR, which has a 3,500-pound capacity and navigates programmed routes with input as needed from a human supervisor. Palion AMRs have driven more than 5 million autonomous miles in customer facilities without a single personnel incident. Incorporating AI and a proprietary vision system, Palion AMRs see, understand, and learn about their environments. Seegrid also rolled out a new Robots as a Service (RaaS) subscription model, to provide an alternative to traditional lease or purchase programs. customers.
5. NURO
Mountain View, California-based Nuro‘s mission is “to better everyday life through robotics,” specifically less driving. Its R2 robot is the first completely autonomous, zero-occupant on-road vehicle approved for commercial delivery by the U.S. Department of Transportation. In April, the company partnered with Domino’s to autonomously deliver pizza to customers in Houston. In June, Nuro launched a new partnership with FedEx, which will use the R2 and a new vehicle for last-mile delivery in FedEx facilities. In November, the company, which is building an assembly facility in southern Nevada, secured $600 million in a funding round led by Tiger Global.
6. ZIMMER BIOMET
In August, Warsaw, Indiana-based Zimmer Biomet secured FDA clearance for its ROSA robot, designed to assist surgeons with the positioning and placement of hip implants in minimally invasive hip replacement surgeries. More than 450,000 total hip replacements are performed each year in the U.S., and that number is expected to rise significantly. The company’s three earlier surgical robots are approved for knee, spinal, and neurosurgery applications.
7. CRG AUTOMATION
When the U.S. Department of Defense put out a call for help in dismantling a stockpile of old sarin-gas rocket warheads, Louisville, Kentucky-based robotics integrator CRG Automation designed a custom system that combined traditional industrial robots and newer autonomous robots to make the work safer and more efficient. After an 18-month design and approval process, the system has been running at the Blue Grass Facility in Kentucky through 2021, on track to complete the project by a DOD deadline of 2023.
8. MEMIC INNOVATIVE SURGERY
Granted FDA approval in March 2021, Tel Aviv-based Memic’s Hominis robotic-assisted surgical device (RASD) facilitates minimally invasive hysterectomies with a first-of-its-kind system that uses humanlike robotic arms and hands manipulated by a surgeon. The surgery, authorized for noncancerous conditions only, requires fewer abdominal incisions than conventional methods, with less risk of infection and other complications. Memic, which raised $96 million last year to deploy the technology, recently announced its first U.S. customers—Kendall Regional Medical Center, AdventHealth Celebration, and the Women’s Hospital at Jackson Memorial, in Florida.
9. SVT ROBOTICS
Integration of technology into warehouse robotics systems is a notoriously painful process that SVT Robotics aims to make easier with its Softbot software platform. Softbot enables businesses to connect their enterprise systems easily to any robot or automation in just days or weeks, not months or years, without having to write any custom code. The company says its implementations have increased 375% from Q4 2020 to July of this year, its workforce doubled, and it raised a $25M Series A in November 2021. Seoul-based multinational CJ Logistics is a flagship customer, using Softbot to rapidly test and integrate robotics technologies for their customers worldwide, reducing onboarding time by 50%, and costs by 30%.
10. COCO
Since launching in summer 2020, Coco has grown to more than 120 employees and operates its remote-operated delivery “robots” across Los Angeles and beyond. With 1,000 “devices” making deliveries for 50-plus restaurant brands, ghost kitchens, convenience and liquor stores, groceries, and small businesses, Coco claims to be the largest robotic delivery service in the industry. After raising a $36 million Series A in August, Coco announced a planned expansion into Miami in early 2022 and launches in at least five other major U.S. cities in the first half of 2022.
